A review by ryanpfw
The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud

5.0

I’m a great fan of Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy, and feel like Simon Jones could narrate a self-help book or an instructional audible about how to balance your checkbook, and I would listen to hear his voice. In fact, I think he may do just that. He’s an incredible talent and is the perfect person to capture Bartimaeus’ idiosyncrasies, so it was a joy to listen to this one.

Story wise, as I didn’t review directly after reading, I’m already losing details. Much of the action involves Bartimaeus and the hereditary guard of the Queen of Sheba, Asmira. While she’s no Nathaniel and I spent a functional portion of the end of the book wishing to strangle her, I was delighted to see the characters shared my frustration. There’s a lot of red herrings and misdirection and despite a couple of seams towards the end of the book (I felt like the initial reaction of the Queen was slightly overdone.) I felt that the story was well-fleshed out and deepened the characters from their first sighting. I wish it had gone just a tad bit further, but it’s Bartimeaus, so I’m not going to quibble.

I also have no memory of whether these events were mentioned at all during the trilogy?